The boss called me up the other day to see if I could put my electronic diary online. After establishing that he wasn’t talking about my PocketPC, but actually my copy of Microsoft Outlook, I started work on an online calendar which would allow us to view our appointments from wherever we happened to be.
Absolutely no planning was done, and instead I dived right into it. The design was similar to the one for this site – white bar with varying shades of grey and orange highlights – and I wrote the whole thing without using images, you know, just for a laugh.
The calendar currently has Day, Month and Year views and supports multiple users. It defaults to your own Calendar Month view, but any user can view any other user’s calendar so they can see what they’re up to on whatever date. The option also exists to flag entries as ‘Private’ so they they can only be seen by the person they apply to. Oh, and admin, but I haven’t abused implemented that bit yet. There was originally a plan for a ‘Week’ view, but given that the month one is plenty good enough there isn’t really any point.
Future plans include a Search facility of some kind and having the site email a list of the day’s jobs during the week, so that one of the first messages of the day will be a list of things to do. Perhaps we could have the next day’s appointments emailed at 4pm the precvious day so that we can see tomorrow’s tasks before tomorrow actually startes – that might be a better idea.
Oh, and the boss wants a version for mobile phones as well. What. The. Hell?
Just recently I’ve been receiving emails to my work address, which has nothing to do with my paypal or home business address, regarding purchases I’ve apparently made using my PayPal account.
The emails are generally a single image, most likely a screencap of a genuine PayPal receipt email, altered to show the purchase of an expensive electronic item – just the type of thing an account hacker would go for. Further down the page is a ‘Dispute Transaction’ link which takes you to the hacker’s fake PayPal front end.
On all occasions so far, the fake site has been removed before I get there, suggesting that PayPal are actually on the ball. Maybe the threat isn’t that bad after all.
So I was driving over to my mum’s house on the way home last night when my car decided to slide right off the frickin’ road and into a muddy field. I’m not entirely sure what happened but it felt like the back wheels let go first (in a front wheel drive car – what the hell?) and the front ones decided to play at the same game. I slid gracefully into a (thankfully unfenced) farmer’s field and came to a halt up to my alloys in mud.
And of course the mud went everywhere, so I’m kinda uncoordinated in my dress-sense today – it was a case of just throwing on the first clean clothes that came to hand.
Someone rang today just to ask me how to spell ‘metre’, and I seriously had to think about it. Off the top of my head I said ‘m-e-t-r-e’ but I’ve been on the internets for so long, complete with all the Americanisatioins that entails, that I was no longer sure. Wikipedia confirmed the spelling for me but it still seems weird seeing it end in ‘r-e’.
I’ve been using a Mac in the office for so long that I’ve forgotten where half of my keys are by the time I get home. That can’t be good! I’m slowly but surely being converted to the Jobs Squad. Just the other day I was thinking about getting a MacBook Pro just because you can install Windows on them now. Ugh.
Various bits and bobs – general chunterings while having a break.
Fog on the Road!
A misty morning, guaranteed to get every nonce showing the world how wonderful their fog lights are. Great. I can see your car at least a hundred yards in front of me thanks to its car-shaped-ness, but put your fog lights on anyway – that’ll help!
Bulk Email Sender Hacking
OK so it’s not hacking as such, but I was playing about with a bulk email sender on the Mac and found that it didn’t check for strict HTML. Ordinarily it adds a TABLE to the bottom of all HTML emails containing something about using the unregistered version (cough!), and it does this by inserting a snippet of HTML just before the /BODY tag. If you do this:
at the end of your HTML email, this little bit of shareware branding gets hidden away.
Dinosaurs!
One of the reccurring dreams I have is of being chased around the streets by a Tyranosaurus Rex. I’ll hide in a room or an alleyway and it’ll appear outside the window or whatever, so I have so scurry off somewhere else. It never catches me, but I wake up rigid with fear. I’m 36 – why is this happening?
AOL Spam-Blocked – hahahah
Sweet, sweet justice. After revealing their Pay-to-Spam-Our-Users scheme recently, it was gratifying to see at least one AOL SMTP server cropping up on the BlockLists. It’s no longer on the SpamCop list which probably means it’s working in the majority of cases again, but it was nice while it lasted.
Googly Adsense
I managed to talk Foo info signing up to Google Adsense via my referral link (the big banner, here) and he’s already raking in the.. uh.. well a few cents here and there anyway. Presumably I get a tiny percentage for referring him as well.
The-Lottery.info
I added a chunk of code the The-Lottery.info last night to allow the owner to enter the prize breakdown for each draw and display it as part of the latest lottery results pages. After pondering it for, ooooh, a whole ten minutes, I eventually came up with a novel way of including default values for the various winning combinations. I though it was groovy, anyway.
Reformat Time!
Gah! I fired up the old laptop today and after it wheezed to a halt into Windows the wireless internet refused to work no matter what. Since I started working in Scunthorpe the laptop has been a dumping ground for all kinds of software (including bulk email stuff, actually) and is generally a mess – time to scrub it up!
Barry McGuigan in Cleethorpes
Barry McGuigan is in Cleethorpes on Monday 24th April at Joe Frater’s boxing night – more details here. I’ll be in attendance as usual. Amir Khan is due at the Christmas show – that should be a good one.
Site redesign
I know I mentioned the DHTML Window Thing (see right) a while ago and how I was going to implement it, but I’ve been thinking of cutting right back on the graphics and going back to plain text instead. The main reasons for this are compatibility and search engine optimisation – all those tables and shit just get in the way really.
No, no, I’m not dead, although there were sure as hell a couple of times yesterday when I thought I might have died and not realised. I didn’t make it to the top but I had a bloody good try, and I’m satisfied with what I managed.
Part of the problem was that I was packing too much weight – both in my rucksack and on my gut. It didn’t take long for my legs to start burning from the unaccustomed exertion, and that was in the first hour. I can’t believe I thought it was a good idea to take a 70cl bottle of Grolsch up there with me. Damned thing weighed a ton by the time I got round to opening it!
By the time I got back to camp I was suffering from both exhaustion and slight drunkeness, which was not a good combination. I staggered into the toilet block on legs that felt like jelly and plonked myself down on a loo for my first piss in about eight hours. My legs took some coaxing to support me and the three steps outside gave me some difficulty, but I eventually made it back to my tent where I promptly collapsed into a heap.
This all happened yesterday. It’s Sunday afternoon now and the reason I didn’t post then is because my mobile has packed up. I can still switch it on but I can’t enter the PIN, since the bottom row of buttons doesn’t work, including the zero which happens to be on of the required digits. I think it got soaked in my sweat, and holding it under the dryer didn’t make any difference. I’ll have to post this on Monday.
But anyway, I’m still alive and I’m recovering well. I finished my book earlier and don’t really have anything else to do but try and get my legs to work properly. Sadly I’m back at work on Tuesday – bah.
I also have the beginnings of a rather splendid beard.
Evening approaches at the end of my first full day of rest since January and it’s been pretty good so far. Weather is still a bit on and off, but if it stays that way tomorrow then things should be fine on the Big Hill. Still concerned about the snow though.
I have a family of ignoramuses (ignorami?) who have set up camp about 20 yards further up the hill but I think I can sleep through their incessant jawing as long as the kids keep quiet. I feel sorry for the nice young couple they’ve set up next to.
OK, so I made it into Fort William at about 5 this morning after driving all night, but the campsite at Glen Nevis doesn’t open until 8am meaning I have to kip in the car in the car park at the foot of mountains. No problem – it’s not like anything could keep me awake, at least.
I got into camp for 8am sharp, picked my spot and got unpacking. This turned out to be the international signal for ”Let there be rain” and it promptly started pissing it down. Of course, the signal for ”Stop bloody raining” turned out to be as simple as finishing the hasty erection of the getting into it. Who would have guessed?
First thing on the agenda was to relieve myself and get some kip. By 11am I was ready to face the world, and after a brunch of Branston Baked Beans and a nice cup of tea I went into town, detouring briefly to drop a couple of hitchhikers off at the Tourist Information Centre, to buy a few bits. That’s as exciting as it gets today – I’m here to relax!
Took a couple of photos of mountains while I was waking up. Most of them have snow on, and they’re not the biggy. Should be fun tomorrow!
Easter is upon us and I’m taking advantage of 4 consecutive free days to nip up to Scotland for a spot of camping. I’ll load up my car with various odds and sods and drive up there overnight to arrive sometime tomorrow morning. The TomTom is targetted on Fort William and I’ll be staying at the Glen Nevis campsite again.
On Saturday I’ll be heading up Ben Nevis, hopefully reaching the top sometime around midday. If you’re online about that time, check out the Ben Nevis Webcam and see if you can spot me. I’ll be lugging my camera, mobile and PocketPC up there and might actually post something while I’m at the top if I can get a signal.
Sunday I’ll probably be recovering and crying over the aches in my legs. I’ve bought PJ Tracey’s “Dead Run” to keep me entertained while the rain (no doubt) lashes down outside over the weekend, and then on Monday I’ll be driving back home.